Underlying Secrets (A NCIS Fanfiction)
by selenaburns345
Summary: When a new order by the government requires NCIS to have K-9 officers work with the teams, the German Shepherd chosen for Gibbs' team appears like any other K-9 unit dog. However, and underlying secret lies beneath the silver collar round her neck. As Dawn solves cases with the team, she has no idea of her true past. What happens when someone reveals who she truly is? Rated T
1. Prologue

Prologue

The twilight before dawn cast shadows upon the small village in Afghanistan where American Marines we're at camp. There was silence except for the occasional shriek of a a desert eagle. But amongst a specific unit, chaos ensued. There was a mother military German Shepherd who was going into labour, and it was time for the puppies to be born.

After a few hours of hard labour, a litter of nine pure bred German Shepherd puppies lay next to their mother, happily drinking away on their mother's breasts. However, unbeknownst to the dogs overseers, outside in a dark alley way there stood a hooded figure in black. In the hooded figure's arms there was a basket with a small bundle inside. As the figure stalked towards the camp hesitantly, they accidentally knocked down a piece of equipment, which caused the dogs to start barking and the attention of the soldiers to come off of the mother dog.

In a panic, the hooded figure dropped the basket and fled before the soldiers could catch them. The soldiers approached the direction that the alarmed dogs had been barking in and only found one thing, a basket with a pink blanket inside.

One of the soldiers started to approach the basket but his friend stuck out his arm and blocked him from doing so. The friend looked at his comrade and shook his head. He looked down at one of the dogs.

"Duke!" he said. "Search!"

Duke obeyed and searched the area surround the basket. When he was sure that there was no bombs in the area, he slowly walked towards the basket with the awaiting surprise. Once his snout reached the basket, Duke abruptly sat next to the basket and poked his snout in between the blanket. There was something in there, and it smelt familiar.

It was a puppy!

Duke pulled the blanket aside with his teeth and began licking the female puppy's head. He made sure the infant puppy was okay before he pulled away and sat down next to the basket. Meanwhile, as all of this had been going on, Duke's human comrades were baffled at his reaction to whatever was in the bundle of blankets. Duke eventually got tired of waiting and walked over to the group of humans and grabbed the sleeve of his human partner, Jack, in his mouth and led him over to the basket.

Jack knelt down and peered into the basket. There was definitely something there. However, because of the position of the blanket, it was impossible to tell what was in the blanket. Grabbing the edge of the blanket, Jack pulled it aside to reveal the shivering newborn, black German Shepherd. Duke watched as his human partner and his comrades become shocked at the find.

Eventually the soldiers got rid of their shock and had enough sense to try and get their mother German Shepherd to adopt the orphan dog. Bringing the wrapped puppy into the warmer tent, the soldiers carefully laid the puppy a few feet away from the mother German Shepherd. The puppies had since gone to sleep and the mother slowly got up and walked over to the puppy and sniffed it. After what seemed like a few moments, the mother picked up the female puppy by the scruff of her tiny neck and brought her over to the basket where the others were.

The soldiers sighed in contentment. Their comrade had saved the little newborn's life.


	2. Chapter 1

[A/N]-

I don't actually know what year the setting of Season 5 takes place in so I'm going to base the timeline off of what year season 5 started. Just letting you know in case there was any confusion. Also, from here forwards the book will continue to be in third person. I am trying to write in the style for a long period of time for the first time, so if you notice that it's gone out of context with third person please comment where down in the comments and I'll fix it right away.

 **Commands**

Gah Rein= Get in

Bleiben= Stay

Chapter 1: New COMRADES!?

Two years had passed since that cold night in that small desert village of Afghanistan. Since then, Jack, the human soldier that had taken her in, had named her Dawn. When the soldiers returned to America from Afghanistan, Jack had taken Dawn with her and had had her evaluated by dog experts. It turned out that Dawn was a pure bred German Shepherd and was able to be trained for the military. Dawn learned her socialization skills at seven weeks old and then at eight month's old she was taken into observation for the military.

After passing the observation, Dawn was put into training. She had to adapt to certain environments, have a strong drive, and understand the reward-for-work motivation. Through all of these trials and tests, Dawn was ready for actual military training. It was long and hard, but finally when Dawn reached the age of one year, she was deployed to Afghanistan with a new partner, Genevieve. (pic of Genevieve and Dawn above. Pretend the dog is the one on the cover) It wasn't until her partner was killed in action that she was sent back to America.

Dawn was sent to live with Genevieve's family at first, but she was too much trained as a military dog to be fit for the role of a family pet. She was accustomed to being in service, so that's how she was going to live. The government took Dawn to a housing shelter for Military dogs who lost their partners and she was put into a cage without knowledge of where she was going. Dawn whined a bit and tried to be get free from the harness, but the muzzle and the five trainers who held her leashes prevented her from doing so.

She was led down a few hallways to where the military dogs with PTSD were held and was shoved into an empty cage that was next to a angry and confused male German Shepherd. The handler that was in the cage with Dawn looked into the strong female dog's brown eyes and gave her a sympathetic look. Dawn looked up at the handler's name badge that read, Vikki. You might be wondering, how is Dawn able to read? Well, Dawn has always self-aware as most dogs are, but she's more self-aware than that of a normal dog. It was almost as if she was as self-aware as a human. Dawn didn't know why she was different than the other dogs, but alas she couldn't remember anything before the night where she awoke next to a mother dog.

It had been a few weeks since Dawn had ben brought the shelter, and with Dawn's keen hearing as a dog, she was able to discover that she was about to be put onto duty again. Dawn didn't know exactly with whom she'd be working with or where for that matter, but she was glad she would be out of the cage that she had been held in for so long. It was a matter of time until she was going to be released from this shelter she liked to call a prison.

/0.0\\\

Dawn lay on the floor of her cage thinking about all of what had happened since she had been brought to this shelter. Since Dawn was not diagnosed with PTSD, she was still classified as a workable service K-9 and had to keep in shape for future jobs. Therefore, the handler's who worked at the shelter were helping her keep in order. Vikki, the handler who had been the kindest and most understanding of all the trainers had quickly become Dawn's favorite among the human workers at the shelter, despite the trust issues Dawn still had after losing Genevieve. Other than that all Dawn did was help keep watch over the shelter, sleep, eat, and stay in her cage. But unbeknownst to Dawn, this was the day that she would be freed from this infernal place that she had come to somewhat tolerate in the past month.

Dawn's attention was brought from her thoughts as the owner of the shelter and Vikki walked into the room with a African American male wearing a suit. Now alert, Dawn obeyed Vikki's command to sit.

"Mr. Vance, I think that you'll find that Dawn here will suffice for the job role you were talking about. She specializes in locating bombs, narcotics, bodies, and weapons." the owner stated.

Vance took a look at Dawn, assessing the quality of her as a service dog. "You said she works well with everyone?"

The owner gave a single, sharp nod in Vance's direction. "Very well, then I'll take her for the job."

The owner and "Mr. Vance" shook hands and Vance signed some sort of form before Vikki grabbed the muzzle and leash and went to open the Dawn's cage. Still sitting from Vikki's command, Dawn did not move as Vikki wrapped the muzzle over her snout and clipped the leash to the collar and muzzle. Vikki then commanded Dawn to stand and then proceeded to lead her out of the cage and over to where Vance and the owner were standing.

"Good, now that you've signed everything and everything's good to go sir." the owner concluded.

Mr. Vance nodded and he took my leash from Vikki and led me from the building. In the parking area, Vance led me to a black Dodge Charger. He opened the door and then looked down at me.

"Gah Rein" Vance stated.

" _Get in_." Dawn translated in her mind and then proceeded to jump into the backseat of the car.

The car ride from then on was silent, as Dawn was a dog and couldn't speak and Vance was a human who thought it awkward to have a conversation with a canine. Although, Vance was kind enough to open the window to allow Dawn to stick her head out in order to feel the cool breeze of wind as the car travelled down the road to their destination.

Vamce stopped the car in an intersection and when a car pulled up opposite them in the next lane with another canine in the backseat, his human right next to him, Vance nearly thought that Dawn was going to growl at them or at least do something in reaction to the other dog. In precaution, Vance rolled up the window next to Dawn. But instead of Dawn reacting the way that Vance had thought, when the dog in the car opposite them barked, yowled, and howled from the recognition of another dog just four feet away from them, Dawn only stared out the window with a look on her face that said: "Really?"

" _Please, if you're gonna go acting like that, at least make sure that the other dog isn't separated from you buy four feet and a sheet of bulletproof glass_." Dawn thought to herself.

Then the light turned green and Vance pulled away from the intersection and the car with the excited schnauzer inside.

Dawn was excited to be meeting her new comrades, but her training as a military K-9 kicked in and made her body stay as still as a statue. The muzzle on Dawn's snout was removed as Vance opened her door for her to get out of the car. As soon as Dawn's paws touched the ground, the door was shut and Vance issued a command.

"Bleiben" he ordered.

" _Stay_." Dawn translated in her mind.

Her body became still and rigid as she stood there. Vance walked to the other side of the car and opened up the front passenger's door and grabbed something. Shutting the door, Bance walked back around the car to where Dawn was and kneeled down to her level. He slipped Dawn's paws through the holes in the vest and then zipped up the back. On the side of the vest the letters, N.C. I.S, proudly stood out in the morning sunlight. Vance then unclipped the collar that was currently around Dawn's neck and grabbed something from his back pocket. Turns out, it was a new collar with a silver N.C.I.S badge on the side that gleamed brightly in the sunlight.

Vance clipped the collar around Dawn's neck and then stood back and admired the dog in front of him. "Well, would you look at that! I'd say that you look like a perfect example of what the first N.C.I.S K-9 would be."

Dawn's chest puffed out a bit in pride and she looked down at her new collar, wagging her tail. She was the first N.C.I.S K-9! She had read the sign when Vance had pulled into the parking lot, N.C.I.S stood for Naval Criminal Investigative Service. It was an agency where they solved military criminal cases, be it murder, fraud, or even a issue with national security.

Vance patted Dawn's head lightly. "Come on, let's go introduce you to your new comrades."

Dawn barked excitedly, but then stopped short. Comrades? She was going to be working with more than one human?


	3. Chapter 2

Sorry for the wait! I started on the chapter and never finished it! Now it is and I have it here! Enjoy!

Tosay in the least, the first impression she'd been expecting from her new team wasn't what she received. Instead of the usual eager greeting, she was met with the scowl of a man with salt and pepper hair and what looked to be a woman with dark curly hair, a bronze-skinned man with brown spiky hair and a man wearing a weird uniform with a _bright_ orange tie and a bunch of badges.

"Vance, what is this?" the scowling man asked, gesturing to Dawn.

Vance smiled and then looked down at the dog standing next to him. "Sitzen."

" _Sit,_ " Dawn translated, and immediately obeyed.

"Gibbs, DiNozzo, Ziva, McGee meet your new teammate," Vance started. "Dawn."

To say that Gibbs was pissed when he saw the dog at Vance's heels is an understatement. His scowl went deeper than Dawn could imagine and his blue eyes went stormy before he looked at Dawn sitting next to Vance. Of course, Dawn naturally thought that he was pissed at her so she avoided eye contact at all costs since she couldn't stand with the "Sitzen" command still in play. Dawn wasn't allowed to disobey the human handling her and if she did she could expect pain from her collar. At least that's what she learned when she was being trained.

"Why wasn't I told about this?" Gibbs asked Vance after looking away from Dawn.

"I assumed you had been told that you were being assigned the first NCIS K-9 officer to your team," Vance answered the scowling man. "Didn't Director Shephard tell you?"

Gibbs looked Vance in the eye. "No, no she didn't."

Gibbs abruptly walked away from the bullpen and up the stairs towards Director Shephardsoffice. Vance stood there awkwardly as Agent DiNozzo, Ziva, and McGee looked at him questioningly.

"Well then," Vance said clapping his hands together. "I'm just gonna leave Dawn here in the bullpen."

Vance looked down at Dawn. "Blieben"

Dawn stayed exactly where she was as Vance walked away towards the elevator.

"Oh, and she was trained with German commands!" Vance called as he walked away.

The elevator opened with a _ding_ and Vance disappeared from sight. DiNozzo the walked up to Dawn and crouched down in front of her with a mischievous smirk on her face.

"German commands, eh?"

/0.0\\\

Being a service dog has its perks but what DiNozzo had told Ziva to say to Dawn in German was a little over the boundary of what a service dog is trained to do. She sighed mentally and wondered what she'd be doing at that moment if she weren't a service dog and just a regular old pet. She envisioned herself as the pet of a little boy with too many siblings to be noticed by his parents so he had her, his best friend and loyal companion. But sadly, that vision would never come to be true due to the fact that in reality Dawn was a service dog and she would spend a majority of her life as a service dog until she retired from service. But the fact still remained that Ziva should have recognized what DiNozzo was telling her to command the K-9 to do. Seriously, who commands a service dog to steal a meatball sub!? Seriously, it's just ridiculous that DiNozzo even thought of telling Ziva to command Dawn to steal McGee's sub not to mention the fact that Ziva actually fell for his trickery.

"Bringen," Ziva commanded pointing to McGee's desk.

" _Retrieve,_ " Dawn translated. " _Well, here goes nothing!_ "

I stood from my place in the middle of the bullpen and walked over to where Ziva pointed and grabbed the sub in my teeth by the foil and brought it to her. She gently grabbed the sandwich from my mouth and looked at it confusedly before turning to DiNozzo.

"Why did Dawn bring me -" she was cut off by DiNozzo as he snatched the meatball sub away from her grasp and took a good-sized bite out of the thing.

"'Cause I was hungwy o'course" DiNozzo mumbled out while chewing.

Ziva raised an eyebrow before shaking her head. "McGee's gonna get you back y'know?"

DiNozzo raised an eyebrow at Ziva's statement. "Sure, I'll believe that when McGoober figures out how to keep a girl interested in him for more than thirty seconds."

 _The next day..._

I was in Abby's lab sitting next to Agent McGee while Abby showed the group of boys her fingerprint system. I didn't know much about Abby other than she was the forensics specialist for Gibbs' team and that she was an excitable goth. I had just met her this morning and just thinking about her reaction to me makes my headache. I mean seriously, if you were in my situation would you expect a perky goth forensic specialist to nearly pummeling you on site and talk to you as if you were a child?

 _Flashback..._

I walked down the hall with Agent Gibbs after getting out of the elevator and stopped when he came to a see-through glass door. I looked up to the key-pad as Gibbs typed in a code and saw the plaque on the wall next to it that read: "Forensics". Why were we down in forensics? Surely there must've been a reason that Gibbs brought me here otherwise I would still be upstairs in the bullpen.

Gibbs hit the enter button and the door slid open with a hiss. I walked along with him until he came to the table where a pale girl with black, pigtail braids and a spiked dog collar around her neck was sitting in front of a computer typing away. Gibbs set the large Cafpow drink onto the table next to the girl, bringing her attention from the screens to Gibbs.

"Abbs, what's the situation on the Diablo evidence?" Gibbs asked. (I made up a fake case...don't think too much of it.)

"It's packed away in the evidence room, Gibbs," the goth girl said. "I labeled it and everything."

"Good," Gibbs said. "Since that's settled, Abby, I want you to meet the newest addition to the team."

Abby turned away from the screens again and looked at Gibbs with a confused look. "What new addition?"

Gibbs pointed down at me and Abby's eyes followed to where he was pointing and they landed on me. Her first reaction was not one I was expecting. She literally squealed and jumped from the chair she was sitting in only to land on me and push nearly to the ground. I let out a yelp and tried to back up out of the goth girl's grip but it was a fruitless attempt as she wrapped her arms around me tightly.

"She's sooo adorable!" Abby squealed in my ear. I could've sworn the high pitch of her squealing was going to make me go deaf soon.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you, Gibbs!" Abby said, looking up to Gibbs.

"It wasn't my decision to have a K-9 on the team," he remarked. "It's because of some new government order that Vance has to follow."

Abby just smiled.

"And apparently, we're the trial team that was chosen to house a K-9 officer," Gibbs said solemnly.

Abby then _thankfully_ got up off of me and stood. I was so glad I could have broke command and howled for joy. I stood up from the ground and sat back down at Gibbs' feet. I looked ahead and listened to them talk about me.

"Well, I'm happy that we were the ones chosen!" Abby stated happily. Maybe she wasn't all that bad, just a little bit excitable. I did know that I was in for quite a ride with my new team, however.

"I have to go talk with director Vance, watch her will you?" Gibbs said, turning around and walking out of the lab.

Abby smiled and squealed happily once again. She looked down at me with a mischievous look in her eye and I shuddered internally. Whatever she was thinking couldn't be good for me...

 _Flashback ends..._

That's how I wound up like I was right now, black and grey striped bow behind my right ear and a spiked collar above my NCIS issued one. All I could say was that Abby was certainly a character and was a person to watch out for when it came to dog makeovers. It was safe to say that I was embarrassed and frustrated beyond belief when McGee's boy scout troop came in to tour the lab. I hadn't been expecting to be seen like this by children and a pack of ten-year-old boys at that. McGee brought them over to Abby and she began to introduce them to all of the forensic equipment.

"In the land of forensic science technology, the mass spectrometer is king," Abby explained as she stood in front of the machine. "It uses the basic magnetic force of a charged particle to measure the mass and relative concentration of atoms and molecules. Pretty cool huh?"

Abby struck a pose excitedly and looked around the group of young boys. The one that stood in the front of the group closest to Abby looked her up an down before speaking.

"Are those tattoos real?" he asked, referring to the multiple tattoos that lined Abby's body. I narrowed my eyes at him and looked to the NCIS visitors name tag that hung from his shirt. "Carson Taylor" is what it read. Abby stopped short at his question and looked at him weirdly.

"Um...yes," she said. "Any other questions?"

Carson raised his hand and spoke again. "How many do you have?"

Abby looked surprised and a little self-conscious that she was getting asked all of these questions.

"A lot," she answered. "That's all I'm gonna say about that." She reached over me and grabbed the lab coat that hung on a chair next to the mass spectrometer.

"A lot?" Carson asked. "I only counted five."

As Abby put the lab coat over her shoulders she replied to him. "The rest of them are um...hidden."

Carson looked Abby up and down again.

"Hidden where?" he asked mischievously.

"Um...they're...uh.." Abby struggled to respond.

McGee walked into the room carrying a box of case files that he set on the counter.

"Hi guys!" he greeted.

"Hi!" the youth rangers responded to their troop leader.

"What'd I miss?" McGee asked.

"Nothing yet," Carson said. "Abby was just about to show us her-"

"AFIS...Program," said forensic scientist interrupted him, looking at his name tag. "Right, Carson?"

"Right...," Carson said as he looked up to Abby.

Abby walked around the table to the AFIS database and started explaining what the heck it was. I followed her over there and sat down at her feet once again.

"Now, if the mass spectrometer is king of the land, this little darling is definitely the queen," Abby stated.

"In the last four years, we've made over two-hundred arrests thanks to AFIS fingerprint matches," McGee spoke up.

"We?" Abby laughed.

McGee put his hands on his hips. "It's a team effort."

"So, uh this is an L SCAN," Abby continued, grabbing Carson's hand.

Holding Carson's right she placed his finger on the plate that scanned the fingerprint.

"All you do is put your index finger on the glass..." she paused to press a button. The screen began to scan Carson's fingerprint.

"and, voila, you're in the system!" she finished spinning around and pointing at Carson.

Carson stepped back and looked up at the screens. "Cool!"

"As we speak, the program is filtering through a database filled with millions of prints," McGee commented.

"The majority of them were recorded after somebody's arrest," Abby stated. "So, assuming you haven't served any hard time, I doubt we're gonna get a-"

A blaring alarm noise sounded as the program made a match to Carson's fingerprint. I looked up at the screen and read what it said. "POSITIVE MATCH. CARSON MATTHEWS. -ABDUCTED- LAST SEEN 05/27/1998." Abby narrowed her eyes and looked down at Carson with a confused look on her face. I looked over to said boy an noticed the scared look on his face. Well, shit...things are certainly about to go down.


End file.
